Donald Trump has a huge national crisis on his hands because of COVID-19. Though he thinks he can blame everyone but himself for his failures, it’s all come down on his watch, with sixteen thousand souls dead, including a 21-year old in Colorado.
And, as we’ve said here in this online newspaper many times, he’s botched it, even after saying from his bullhorn podium in the Rose Garden that it’s no big deal (see CNN’s John Avlon at https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/04/10/john-avlon-trump-coronavirus-pandemic-blame-reality-check-newday-vpx.cnn).
Trump has seven luxury hotels in the United States.
Four of them have closed because of the pandemic, but three of
them — in New York, Chicago, and the District of Columbia — remain open for business, but with many, many empty rooms because of the pandemic.
His flagship hotel, Trump International Hotel, is a very high end, luxury hotel right there on Pennsylvania Avenue, only two or three stones’ throws from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
He deliberately chose to call it Trump International because that’s where hundreds, if not thousands, of foreign businesspersons, lobbyists, and officials, as well as very wealthy Republican American donors to Trump's campaign, prefer to stay, seeking to curry favor with him, because he pays no attention to the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.
As Politico’s Anita Kumar says, Trump could open all those empty rooms to house patients or first responders and many others affected by the crisis — only he hasn’t (https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/09/trump-coronavirus-hotels-businesses-172489).
And Congressman Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, hit the nail on the head when he said that it’s not in the least surprising to him that Trump & Co. has chosen not to demonstrate charity during an international crisis of the first magnitude.
As we reported two days ago, Senator Bernie Sanders has suspended his presidential campaign (https://www.apocryphalpress.com/2020/04/08/as-bernie-drops-out-the-times-greg-weiner-calls-out-trump-for-his-unparelled-narcissism/).
This morning, at 3 am, associate solitary reporter Keith Coleman was camped in a tent on a public sidewalk outside Trump International Hotel (not a COVID-19 Treatment Tent, either, because Coleman covers all matters involving the homeless in our nation’s capital).
‘Long ‘bout 7, along came Senators Sanders and Warren, with Joe Biden, DNC Chair Tom Perez, and associate solitary reporter Susanna Sherman, now a First Responder, dressed in her physician’s white coat (Sherman is a woman of many talents, and she knows almost as much about medicine as CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta).
With Coleman and Dr. Sherman leading the way, the six entered the hotel to suggest to Hotel Manager Tiffany Trump that she open all the empty rooms to help those in need.
But immediately, they were stopped by burly security guards (mimicking Trump’s personal insecurities) and, when the six persisted, they were arrested and taken to the District of Columbia Jail.
The charge: trespassing on private property.
Tiffany was busy welcoming 60 wealthy foreign guests, and she did not visit the DC Six.